Sunday, November 8, 2009

Line Drawings

Finally. After getting sick and getting way behind, I'm nearly caught up with my classroom work. I've finally finished scanning the last of our line art drawings and have posted them on the web.

I love teaching art. I enjoy finding projects and seeing what the kids will do with the ideas. The first project we worked on this school year was line drawings based on art projects I saw on the excellent blog: Deep Sparkle. The drawings were actually finished about a month ago but I just finished scanning the last of the drawings. As I said in my last blog, getting sick put me way behind.

Line drawings are a good way to introduce and reinforce line and shape concepts. Through this activity, children learn a lot about the different types of line and shape, engage in planning, outlining, cutting and pasting, and mounting their projects. I followed the steps from Deep Sparkle's Turtle Drawings and Owls and Cats. All the project characters are modeled after these three ideas. You can see some student artwork here.

I modeled the outlines of each character for each grade level. I demonstrated how to create sections for each character and then together we brainstormed the many different line and shape types (geometric, organic, and free form). We make a huge chart of all possible lines and shapes we could use in our drawing. Students first drew with pencils and then outlined with thin Sharpie markers. All lines and shapes were drawn with markers only. Each section has to have the same line or shape within.

As with any art project/activity, this one touches on many of the art standards required by my State of Washington. When I return the art work to homeroom teachers, I try to include a list of those standards that were addressed. I include them here for those of you who might be interested. The project models below are teacher models.

2nd grade fish: Uses and produces different line qualities for a variety of purposes. Uses and produces horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curved, dotted, dashed, and zigzag lines to create shapes in an artwork.

3rd grade cats: Produces different line types and line qualities to create detail in artwork. Uses and produces horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curved, zig-zag lines to create images. Uses lines to create patterns, designs, and textures in art.4th grade owls: Produces different line types and line qualities to create detail in art work. Uses and produces horizontal, diagonal, curved, zig-zag lines to create a picture. Uses patterns, designs and textures and textures in art work.

5th grade: Produces different line types and line qualities to create detail in art work. Uses and produces horizontal, diagonal, curved, zig-zag, dashed, dotted, thick/thin lines to create a picture. Uses patterns, designs and textures and textures in art work.